


warmth

by vade_brucestephenbucky



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Character Death, Child Neglect, Childhood Trauma, Gen, Originally for Riza Hawkeye Day, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26345587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vade_brucestephenbucky/pseuds/vade_brucestephenbucky
Summary: A glance into Riza Hawkeye's childhood, to the night before and the day of her mother's death.
Relationships: Berthold Hawkeye & Riza Hawkeye, Berthold Hawkeye/Riza Hawkeye's Mother, Riza Hawkeye & Riza Hawkeye's Mother
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	warmth

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this fic contains implicit and explicit happenings of a) domestic and child neglect and b) the death of a parental figure, specifically a mother. if these are sensitive subjects for you, please proceed with caution.

Riza Hawkeye’s childhood residence was once a warm place, heated by not only the gas-burning fire or the convection of their stove, but the tight embrace of her mother as she fell asleep in her arms. These were Riza’s earliest and fondest memories, the ones in which she was held against her mother’s warmth as she rocked in the wooden chair in the living room, or when her mother read her histories of the neighboring regions of Amestris to lull her off into a sound slumber in her dimly lit bedroom. 

“Mama?” Riza whispered. She placed her finger on the word where her mother paused and raised her eyes. 

Her mother pushed a lock of blonde hair out of Riza’s face. She pressed a kiss to Riza’s forehead and faced her daughter. “Yes, baby?” 

“Will Father ever hold me like you do?” Riza’s eyes were wide, hopeful of her mother’s answer, and adjusted to the low lightning of her bedroom. “Will he read with me at bedtime?” 

Her mother hesitated for a moment and let out a sigh. Her tone was assured, however, when she answered, “Someday. I’ll make sure to remind him so he doesn’t forget through all of his work. I promise I won’t let him.” She smiled sweetly.

“I don’t think Father will forget about me,” Riza spoke and further leaned into her mother, content with the answer. Though the thought of her slipping her father’s remembrance crept in the crevices of her mind, Riza took rest in her mother’s promise and drifted off to sleep. 

~~~

Riza awoke to the smell of sweet pastries wafting from beneath her door, traveling away from the kitchen to reach her bedroom. She jumped out of bed, brushed her teeth, and washed her eyes as she did every morning, and rushed to the kitchen to meet her mother. 

“Good morning, baby. Did you sleep well?” her mother greeted, bringing Riza into a tight hug and lifting the child to her hip. “I’m making grits at the moment, and the croissants are almost done cooking.” She stirred the pot of grits with her spoon and smiled at Riza. 

Riza grinned and took a deep breath in through her nose, taking in every scent in the kitchen. “I did, Mama! Are those croissants from Central? You told me last night that they baked and sold them there.” 

“No, but I wish they were!” her mother said with a soft chuckle. “I haven’t had Central croissants in years. But these will be just as good. The recipe was my father’s, he learned it from the bakers in Central when he would visit.” 

Riza nodded as the timer went off, and she was set down by her mother. She stepped back and watched as her mother opened the stove and took out the tray of golden brown, moon-shaped bread, setting it down on the counter. She smiled at the sight of them. 

“Get the strawberry jam, Riza. It’s in the cabinet by the sink,” her mother asked and grabbed a spreading knife from a drawer. She split the pastry in half and placed it on a serving-sized plate after spooning the grits to its side. She set the plate on a tray. 

Riza scurried to the cabinet and stepped onto the stool she used to reach for things when she helped her mother cook. She took the strawberry jam off the lowest shelf and closed the cabinet doors with care, returning to her mother after she did so. 

“Here you are, Mama!” Riza exclaimed, handing the jar to her mother with a bright smile. “Is that for you?” 

Her mother shook her head. “For your father. I’ll be sure to have one made for both you and me after you give this to him, alright?” She spread the jam across the croissant and pressed the pieces together. “Get a glass, and I’ll pour him some milk as well.” 

On the mornings her mother would cook, Riza would take her father the first serving of every meal, by request of her mother, no matter how hungry she might have been. Often it was the only time of the day she would get to see her father, much to her mother’s dismay. 

Berthold Hawkeye was a dedicated and particular man, to his research of alchemy, and at one point, Riza’s mother. He would spend the days in his study, alone, combing through writings of his own and alchemists before him, deciphering codes no one else could grapple. Before Riza came along, he would spend the nights in his bedroom, with her mother, releasing the stress of a day’s research and expressing his plans for the following day, intertwined in one another.

With Riza’s birth, Berthold came upon countless realizations of equivalent exchange, life, death, and at a pivotal point amid her mother’s labor, the secrets to flame alchemy he had long been striving to uncover, revealed themselves to him. So when he held his tiny creation in his arms for the first time, he could not pry his focus from the shape of a transmutation circle that had revealed its arrangement in his mind. 

The infant in his hands, who’s eyes he had not met, had become an immediate afterthought. 

“Beautiful,” he muttered, tears rolling down his cheeks as he handed Riza back to her mother, exiting their bedroom at once and entering his study at the end of the hallway. There was no twinge of remorse in his heart, no hint of longing instinct to cradle his newborn as he took a pencil into his hand and began to sketch. His tears were not for her, he assured. But Berthold was unsure of the true reason he cried that day, just why his tears were shed. Later he would call them an involuntary reaction to his revelations, one of which he could not help but have.

From that day forward, Berthold became inseparable from his studies, locking himself in his quiet study, walls lined with shelves of books for hours upon end, never retiring to their bedroom until in the early hours of the morning. He would emerge for food and the washroom, with a simple glance at Riza and occasional kiss to her mother’s cheek before retreating to his bed to sleep throughout the day. Whenever he might awake, he would repeat the process and return to his studies with ad nauseam from her mother. 

Riza’s mother would plead with her husband to spend time with his daughter, to rock her to sleep when her energy would diminish after a day’s work, as it did in the evenings. 

Berthold never agreed, placing the focus of his research above anything else in his life. He intended for his life to remain centered around the bookshelf-clad walls of his study, and the transmutation analyses, ancient inscriptions, and alchemic arrays he pieced together day by day. 

The years passed after Riza’s birth and her mother’s previous strength had not returned, the repetitious days without help from her husband had atrophied her to a degree in which her mother could not recover. On the much-anticipated days when she found the strength to cook and emerge from her bed, or out of the chair in the living room on her own, were the happiest of her and Riza’s shared life, divided from the attention of Riza’s father. 

“Take this to your father, Riza. He’ll be in his study,” her mother said, handing Riza the tray of her father’s breakfast, along with his glass of milk. 

Riza smiled and scurried up the stairs, turning the corner in the corridor and descending the hallway to her father’s study. 

“Oh, and Riza!” her mother’s voice called from below her, “don’t forget to knock!” 

But Riza had already opened the door to her father’s study, her breath leaving her chest as the tray was snatched from her hands by her father before she could get to look at him, let alone greet him. 

Her heart sank, and her smile fell as she stood hopelessly outside his door, listening as her father rustled around in his study. Riza felt her knees weaken and her hands tremble, though she held nothing. Tears filled her eyes; heat rushed to her cheeks. She let out a shaky breath and stood in the darkness of the hallway, attempting to stop whatever the emotion was that came over her before her mother grew worried. 

Riza wiped her tears before they could burst out of her eyes and returned to the kitchen, careful not to linger too long outside her father’s door. She realized he might not want her there. 

“Will Father be through with his work soon, Mama?” Riza asked quietly as she took the final step down from the stairs and walked to her mother’s side. 

Her mother took notice of her reddened cheeks and mildly swollen eyes, pushing the locks of Riza’s golden blonde hair out of her face. She nodded, set down their plate of food on the counter, and brought Riza into a comforting embrace, lifting her up in her arms and holding her to where she could lay against her chest. 

“I’m sure of it, baby,” her mother answered and pressed a kiss to Riza’s forehead. “He just needs more time.” 

This intrigued Riza. “How long has he been working?” 

“For a long time, sweetheart,” her mother began and took Riza into the living room. She sat down on the couch with Riza in her lap and smiled. “Even since before I met him. Before we had you. ” 

Riza’s eyes went wide. “Does that mean he’s close to finishing?” 

Her mother shrugged. “I wish I could say. He’s barely stopped working since you were born. He used to help me throughout the day and come out of his study.” 

Riza watched her mother’s eyes fall from her’s, and she knew that her mother was sad about how much her father worked. And of course, she was sad as well. She wished to see her father. 

“Am I the reason he doesn’t come out anymore?” 

“No, of course not!” her mother reassured, shaking her head with a look of shock. “No, Riza, not in a million years would you be the reason. What’s got you thinking about that? Was it what I said about him not stopping since you were born?” 

Riza shook her head. “No, I was just wondering,” she said and smiled, though she still had the feeling was similar to that of what she experienced before falling asleep the night before. She wanted to shake these feelings as soon as possible. They couldn’t be good for her. 

“Good. ‘Cause you, Riza, are most definitely not the reason! I couldn’t tell you why myself, but believe me, it is not you, and it will never be you.” Her mother smiled and pecked her cheek with a kiss. “Now, I bet you are hungry. Those croissants I made are gonna get cool if we don’t eat them.” 

Her mother stood from the sofa and took Riza’s hand into her own, leading the child into the kitchen and placing her in a seat at the table. She placed the plate with Riza’s strawberry jam croissant, cut into bite-sized portions, in front of her, and set the glass of milk to the right of her plate. She sat in the seat directly to Riza’s left and gave her daughter a fork. 

“After you eat we can read about the history of Amestris again. I’ll pick up right where I left off last night, alright?” 

Riza nodded and took the first bite of her breakfast, smiling from ear to ear as she chewed the buttery, perfectly baked croissant of her mother’s making. She took a sip of her milk and wiped her mouth. She looked up at her mother and for the first time that morning, Riza saw the twinges of tiredness in her eyes. She watched her mother’s chest rise and fall as she struggled to get in a full breath while she ate. 

“Are you okay, Mama?”

Her mother’s eyes went wide and quickly, she shook her head. “Of course Riza,” she reassured, after swallowing her bite of food. “I’m alright, just hungry is all.” She smiled. 

Riza’s worrisome expression didn’t shift, and she couldn’t bring her eyes away from her mother’s. She let her mother’s words rest in her ears for just a little while longer before accepting them as truth as the unruly thought of her mother lying to her left her mind. 

“Eat right up, Riza. Don’t you worry about me,” her mother said and speared another bite of the croissant, smiling as she took it into her mouth. 

Riza nodded and continued to eat, though she couldn’t shake the unsettledness in her head that persisted from last night, into just moments before returning from her father’s door, and now, at the kitchen table. She couldn’t pin a name to what she felt, but it reminded her of a splinter she once got from walking down the wooden ramp to her backyard without shoes. The tiny wood shard nagged at the base of her foot until her mother dug it out of the raw sore with the tip of a pocket knife as Riza squirmed and writhed of discomfort. 

However, Riza didn’t think a pocket knife could carve these feelings out of her head, she knew it couldn’t be that simple. But she knew she hated that splinter, so she hated these feelings as well.

Riza finished her plate and set it in the sink with her mother’s, washing out their drinking glasses and cleaning their forks.

“Good job, Riza,” her mother said, patting her daughter on her back as they returned to the living room, settling on the couch with the Amestrian history book. 

Riza rested in her mother’s arms. She was warm against her mother, as she always was, but the thick, woolen blanket they settled underneath ensured she stayed comfortable. 

“Alright, where were we?” her mother started, flipping open to the chapter on Central City she marked from the night before. “Culture and cuisine of Amestris, right?” 

Riza nodded. She recognized the page and focused her eyes on the words, all unfamiliar but coming from her mother’s mouth. Her eyelids were heavy, however, from the fullness of her belly and the blissful comfort in which her mother surrounded her. Riza let her eyes fall shut as her mother’s quiet readings guided her to sleep. 

~~~

“You need to get up, Riza.” 

The voice she awoke to was stern, a man’s voice. She opened her eyes and met the ones of the man she knew to be her father. However, their gaze did not lock and she shifted her focus to her mother, who seemed to be sleeping soundly, her arms still wrapped around Riza’s body. 

But Riza couldn’t ignore how the red had left her mother’s cheeks, and her chest didn’t rise and fall as it did at the kitchen table. Her arms, though they were encircled around her, simply laid limp against her, with no real grip on Riza. But worst of all, she couldn’t feel her mother’s warmth. 

With this, Riza began to sob as she was lifted from her mother’s embrace by her father, the blanket still in her arms. 

“Let me down!” 

Berthold held the girl against him as she wailed, shutting his eyes at the sight of his deceased wife. “Be quiet, Riza,” he said as he led the coroner and his men into their living room. He lowered Riza to the ground but kept a tight grip on her arm to keep her away from her mother. 

Riza watched as they removed her mother’s body from the couch, desperately trying to escape her father’s hold. She dug her nails into his skin, to no avail, and let out another sob when they draped a white sheet around her mother’s body and left out through the front door. 

“Where are they taking Mama?” 

Her father raised Riza from the floor without an answer to her question. “Come on,” he said and brought Riza out of the living room, walking with her upstairs and leading the girl into her bedroom. He wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and stepped into the frame of her door. 

“Please tell me where those men are taking Mama!” Riza cried with a desperate glare at her father, falling to her knees again. “Are they going to bring her back? And she’ll be warm again?” 

Berthold stood, unfazed by his child’s weeping. “Your mother isn’t coming back, Riza. It’s just me now.” 

“Can your research bring Mama back?” 

He shook his head. “But you can help me with it tonight.” 

“I don’t want to. It can’t bring Mama back.” 

Her father let out a sigh and closed her door. 

Riza forced herself off the cold tile of the floor and climbed into her bed, burrowing underneath the sheets as she sobbed into her mother’s blanket. She shut her eyes tightly as scenes of her mother flashed throughout her head, triggered by the scent of her mother on the blanket and the faint, false sensation of her mother’s arms encircled around her body. 

And Riza hoped, those memories, her mother’s scent, and the warmth of her arms wrapped tightly around her body, wouldn’t fade.

**Author's Note:**

> this was a hard fic to write. originally, i intended this to be the first chapter of a sort of multi-chapter fic about Riza's childhood, from the death of her mother to the many apprenticeships with her father and how that sort of thing influenced who she is now, but about halfway through writing this, sadly, i lost a lot of spark i had for it. but i still wanted to post this for riza hawkeye day (which was september 1st, it is september 7th as i am writing this LOL). 
> 
> but i do hope you enjoyed it! i KNOW it was painful, man, it took a LOT out of me writing it. leave a comment if you have any thoughts!


End file.
